Comment: The job of the media is not to let down its guard and it appears odd that the Perussuomalaiset are asking the media to stop treating them unfairly. These types of incredible requests are being made by none other than PS MPs like James Hirvisaari, whose blog writings of Muslims have become infamous.

The request by the PS and Hirvisaari, who belongs to the far-right Suomen Sisu association and who believes in “racial purity” since Finns should not marry foreigners, is telling the media like some autocratic ruler what their editorial line should be.

If nobody has told some of these PS MPs, they should know by now that they are public figures and therefore are under the public spotlight.

Hirvisaari is one of the PS MPs that former Prime Mininster Paavo Lipponen made reference on Monday of having a far-right ideology and who should be isolated in parliament.

The request to the media made by the PS and Hirvisaari reveal their ignorance of what the role of the media is in society.

Hi William Rivera and welcome to Migrant Tales. Anytime anyone starts to blame the media for their shortcomings they are in trouble. It shows how little they know how the media works. Thank you for sending the link!

Especially HBL is very impartial in its portrayal of the Perussuomalaiset. It has of course nothing to do with money, power and politics. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the PS advocates taxing foundations (HBL is run by some very large foundations); it has nothing to do with power – SFP is trying the same thing as Labour in the UK, become a champion of the immigrants and minorities, but they need a voter base. A minor snag might also be that PS advocates scrapping Swedish as obligatory 2nd language, placing it as a voluntary choice as an “obligatory foreign language”. So HBL of course writes totally impartially about Perussuomalaiset. And then it quotes back what the Swedish press – who read HBL – write about these Perussuomalaiset with glee. Yes. Follow the money daddy said.

Allan, my biggest criticism of the PS is that it uses bigotry to fuel nationalist sentiment. If they got rid of the racism and tried to help the poor they’d be a different party. But the issue is simple: bigotry, Islamophobia, anti-immigration, nationalism and other populist rhetoric make the party, at least for me, very unappealing. That party is also hostile. It attacks me, my family, my identity and my rightful place in Finland. It insults immigrants, including Finnish immigrants. That is why many see the PS as an “abnormal” party, a passing fad. In order to become a great party you must have lasting values. Racism and bashing minorities do not make it.

I wonder which kind of adjective would you give to the media of a country where its purpose is not to inform because it’s being manipulated. I don’t think Finland is the case. Check the link below to get a glimpse:

Hi William, welcome to our blog. Your quess as as good as mine but I’d never call the media “a whore.” It serves an important purpose. If it forgets that purpose then we are in trouble. I think it is ludicrous that a party like the PS thinks it is being treated unfairly by the media.

I don’t know where you are from, but there are a lot of people in Finland who have never felt poverty nor have they lived under an autocratic regime that censors the press. If they had they would not (1) be so spiteful of refugees/immigrants and (2) speak of their media in such a way.

The “independent” media should be an independent and impartial reporter of the facts. The Finnish media is pushing an agenda trying to distort the facts to effect public opinion. And the tabloid press is only interested in selling front page.

Allan, there are big differences from media to media and between countries. A news story, in theory, should not have any editorializing. However, in an editorial or column you can be as opinioinated as you wish. All papers take stands and this is a good matter.

Do you think that the job of the media is just to give information? Anyone can do that. What the media does is it puts the infromation in context and attempts to cut through the you-know-what. This isn’t easy but it is the main job of every journalist.

Editorials and columns are editorials and columns. What the media should do With news indeed is to give information, and background. What it does now is lies and distorts the facts. Thankfully we now have numerous internet communities that can help us see through the you-know-what. And to get to the original sources.

The job of the media is to sell newspapers. There is very little investigative journalism in Finland as most of the media is not financially independent.

–Isn’t this exactly what you were doing when you insisted on characterising residence permit applicants as illegal immigrants?

Allan, is this what you want the Finnish media to write without checking if it is true?

If you took the time to look at the video on Finnish Americans’ views of immigration, the same dreams and hopes that people bring to Finland is what our ancestors brought to distant lands like the United States.

What’s wrong if a person want to live a better life? What’s wrong if he is ambitious? If I lived in a country that did not give me opportunity I’d move somewhere else. What is wrong with that?

And thus there is nothing wrong abusing the asylum system? Your morals is like you wanted a cheap hotel room in a strange town – you would go to a hospital and complain about chest pains or a headache. And you say this is all right as people have a human right to be in strange towns.

You still don’t get it. Parliament makes the law. By definition the law determines what is legal. Permit applicants are legal residents according to the law. Allan nevertheless insists that both Parliament and the law are wrong and some permit applicants are not legal after all.

Perhaps the problem is that the media are similarly unable to understand the wisdom of seeking electoral support by demonising a population group.

They need people with your sharp logical acumen to explain the error of their ways.

Or perhaps the orderlies at Lapinlahti simply failed to log out again.

Legitimate, if it means anything at all, means that their parents were married.

What you said was that asylum-seekers are illegal immigrants, and that is plainly untrue. You have persisted in saying this, even after I showed you the specific statute defining legal residence in Finland and explained to you that this is no different from the principles governing any other public administrative licensing system. If you call permit applicants illegal, then this also means that applicants for driving licences and environmental permits are similarly illegal. It’s only your racism that makes you reserve the illegal epithet for a certain category of permit applicant.

Do the orderlies at Lapinlahti ever remember that inmates are not allowed online?